MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: Maharashtra government decided to hang Ajmal Kasab in Pune's Yerawada jail and bury his body inside the high-security prison because of law and order considerations.

Although Yerawada and Nagpur prisons, both central jails, are the only prison complexes in the state with facilities for execution of death sentence, sources said the sentence could have been carried out inside Arthur Road jail itself if the authorities had so wished.

The government was more comfortable with Yerawada as the site for Kasab's hanging, sources said. Sources in Delhi confirmed that Yerwada was Maharashtra government's choice.

Anxieties about repercussions for law and order were also the reason why government decided to bury Kasab inside the jail complex. In doing so, it was only following the script it used for burying incognito nine others who had executed Lashkar's plot to maim Mumbai on November 26, 2008.

Besides the problem in sending across the bodies to Pakistan at a time when it was in denial mode about being the launch pad for the terrorist strike, authorities chose to bury them secretly also to eliminate the possibility of the graves of the slain terrorists being exploited by jihadis for their own ends.

The location where the nine Lashkar terrorists were buried has been kept under wraps in what many see as evidence of the high degree of professionalism among security forces and intelligence agencies.

Although intelligence agencies did not apprehend any trouble in the wake of the hanging, Maharashtra government on Wednesday sounded a red alert to guard against trouble makers seeking to whip up passions.

The US gave Osama bin Laden a sea burial because it feared that the Al-qaida would have turned the grave of its commander into a rallying point and a source of inspiration for terrorists. The exact spot where Osama's body was dumped into the sea is known only to US defence personnel.